Donald Nicholson-Smith

“Foreign Bodies” is the title of a promising, pioneering series of international crime fiction that never was. It was planned as a series of French Crime Fiction translated into English and published in America. The project had been drafted almost two decades ago by the former member of the Situationist International, Donald Nicholson-Smith, the translator of Debord’s Society of Spectacle, Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday life, Lefebvre’s TheProduction of space and other key texts. Nicholson-Smith is also the translator of the quintessential French Noir author, Jean-Patrick Manchette, whose situationist trajectory mirrored his. It is not only regrettable but also damaging for the understanding of the international Noir genre in the English speaking world that this series never saw the light of day. The contemporary surge of French Noir in English translation due to publishers such as Pushkin Vertigo, Gallic Books, or NYRB might be seen as an opportunity to revisit Nicholson-Smith’s project. Continue reading →